Defensive Patent License Offer

Oct 12, 2016

Also published to the bitcoin-dev mailing list and Bitcoin tx b4bf94f5c457d080924aa163106d423670373cfe3b10f8ec00742c2234b01b72

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256
I, Peter Todd, hereby declare myself and all technology companies that I
control as "Defensive" by committing to offer a Defensive Patent License,
version 1.1, for any of my patents either existing or future, to any DPL User.
Neither I nor any companies that I control have any patents at this time.
My contact address is pete@petertodd.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJX/t11AAoJEGOZARBE6K+yR00H/0xp3oO7FiMvM4pjfoHZPPOa
m3KjT4RSbFQLa9uniz0u/9bkc5I70CggkY3jtNLtDMbMBTwcMP61ABsvx+5y2gGD
zE6VZ9DPcHVg/Eup6WSBlQO3HQKuFVz7vXSMuaidG7A+fpkU71SjDpB4M6hdvWnS
+L9XBQ1GtQe0lSM73s4mld/IvB1giwPN1bOheQ9koYcQjj+B8PWyt2gIUwctxyvA
7bC+KtCQT4RJPsQHbHx569CDkyIi3dNt0rTjCo5bOeUKrJF7eA3YktYdTJefZ+Rf
00dbRZMslrg3dW9VWECfC0xC/kn+heStJ7WqJJKqYWo4apm6IiKPZxlwIcVscF0=
=xrPk
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Notes

On the advice of my lawyer, I’m currently offering only a specific version of
the DPL. I probably will offer licenses under subsequent versions in the
future, but I’d prefer to see how the DPL evolves and whether or not the
license stewards behind it prove trustworthy before committing to doing so.

The language “all technology companies I control” is there to avoid any
complications with non-technology companies that I may control in the future,
e.g. family real-estate holding companies, and the non-profit caving group
I’m a part of. To my knowledge, I only control one company as of writing, the
numbered company I do all my consulting through; I consider that company a
“technology company”, and thus the above offer applies to it.

Equally, if by some stroke of luck I do end up in control of any other
technology companies - maybe Bill Gate passes away and his blockchain smart-contract will
mysteriously gives me control of Microsoft - then the above offer will apply.

Thanks goes to my lawyer, Addison Cameron-Huff,
for his advice and work drafting the above statement.